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About six months ago, when I decided to finally begin working on
a new startup, I thought I was prepared for the challenge.
After all I had been successfully running my public relations
business, fifteen media, for more than four years. I figured at
least I knew what to expect when it comes to starting a business.
How wrong I was.

The main difference is that my new project, Glamtrepreneur, deals with an issue
that's very important to me. The company I'm planning to
launch next year will have a goal of creating programming and
initiatives to teach girls about entrepreneurship. Don’t get
me wrong, I still enjoy doing PR and I will still continue to
do it, but I didn’t realize how a passion project, like
Glamtrepreneur, would unleash a whole different set of
learning experiences.

Now that I have successfully hosted half of the Glamtrepreneur
workshops I have scheduled for the summer, I can share a thing or
two about launching a business associated with a cause one deeply
cares about:

1. Learn to harness the passion. At
timespassion is a double-edge sword.
Entrepreneurs need to be passionate about what they do to
make their business succeed. But passion can also be a
detriment. When I first started working on Glamtrepreneur,
every time I talked about it, I would get unnecessarily fired
up about what I was doing. I realized that I needed to scale
back my approach a bit or no one would ever take me seriously.

One thing that has helped me tremendously is hiring an outside
writer to develop talking points. This way when I meet with
people I can convey my passion and ideas in a concise manner --
rather than rambling on and on.

2. Enjoy the ride. It's harder to be patient
when I work on a passion project. With my PR business, I feel
like I can go with the flow. I take one thing at a time, and I
haven't worried that I need to do everything at once. For
Glamtrepreneur, I find myself constantly worrying about where I
want the project to be one day, rather than focusing on what I am
doing today.

3. Don’t get frustrated when people don’t understand the
vision. When people don’t get what I am trying to do
with Glamtrepreneur, I become extremely frustrated. When someone
doesn’t think it's important, I take it like a personal insult.
That has not been the case for me while running my PR firm. But I
recognize that it's important for me to learn to detach my
emotions from this new project as best as possible.

The other night, for example, I was on a date with someone I had
been seeing for a few weeks. I felt myself becoming extremely
defensive when he didn't quite understand the vision
for Glamtrepreneur. I had to remind myself that not everyone
can immediately jump into my head and comprehend all my
ideas.

Be grateful. Through my involvement with the
Glamtrepreneur project, I have realized how many people it takes
to turn a vision into a reality. Sometimes entrepreneurs might
take for granted the other people around them. But there is no
way to execute a plan without others. Even though a startup owner
might have great ideas, he or she can't do everything alone.

Take the time to tell people thank you because without them
there's no business. Starting a new enterprise is definitely a
team effort.